"Engaging in honest labour": Land, inheritance and stratification in the Rehoboth Baster Gebiet

Abstract:

The Rehoboth Gebiet, "homeland" of the Baster people of Namibia, covers an area of about 1.3 million hectares, or three million acres. Located slightly south on the central plateau, it has often been described as including some of the best farming land in the territory. The northern parts are regarded as being prime pasturage for large stock, while the drier and more sandy southern reaches are generally considered to be very good country for the
raising of karakul, sheep and goats. But even the casual observer is struck by the fact that the land is poorly and unevenly utilized for farming purposes. Although there are a few farms where installations and livestock would compare very favourably with some of the better ones in the surrounding white areas, this is far from common. Many Baster-owned farms are clearly overcrowded, and unable to support through farming the large numbers of people settled on them. They are rural slums, where the only evidence of farming will be a few goats cropping the odd tuft of vegetation amid the many poorly-constructed corrugatediron
shacks. On other farms there may be good grazing, but few of the other necessities required to pursue modern farming methods: the quality of the livestock may be poor, and there may be a shortage of bore-holes and other installations required for efficient exploitation of the resources. Still other Baster-owned farms consist largely of pangrond: land almost devoid of vegetation, where the surface of the earth has been trampled into a hard crust through overstocking and drought…. In this paper I attempt to provide a brief outline of the
historical conditions and customary practises which have led to
the decline in the farming potential of the Gebiet, and secondly
to describe the state's development initiative, and the political
and economic consequences of this intervention.